Can OCD Be Seasonal?

My son Dan’s obsessive-compulsive disorder was at its very worst around January-March of 2008. After floundering and fighting our way through a maze of disorienting treatments and programs for OCD, we finally found the right help for Dan in the form of exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy. Exactly one year later we were almost, though not quite, back to square one. At that time, I sat in the psychiatrist’s office with Dan as the doctor talked about OCD often going in cycles. I was terrified. Was Dan slipping back to not being able to eat again? Was all his hard work doing ERP for nothing? As it turns out, we discovered that most of Dan’s problems at this point were related to the various medications he was taking. He was wrongly medicated and he was over-medicated. So while I don’t believe that’s what was going on with Dan at the time, the idea of OCD being cyclical stayed in my mind. It made sense to me — as much as anything to do with OCD ever makes sense. After all, Seasonal Affective Disorder is real. If depression can be seasonal, why can’t OCD and other brain disorders be seasonal as well? I’ve read many first-person blogs about OCD over the years, and a good number of these bloggers attest to their OCD flaring up at certain times of the year, typically the colder, winter months. So when I came across this recent article, Woman’s Rare Case of ‘Seasonal OCD’ Cured, my first thought, before even reading the article, was “What’s so r...
Source: Psych Central - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Tags: Disorders Family General Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Personal Stories Psychology Seasonal Affective Disorder Treatment Anxiety exposure and response prevention Fluoxetine Major Depressive Disorder Obsessions Relapse Selective Source Type: news